12/12/2018

Michigan to close its Confucius Institute; UCLA's remains open

The University of Michigan will close its Confucius Institute next year when the current agreement governing the institute expires. ...

he Confucius Institutes -- Chinese-government funded centers of language and cultural education housed on about 100 U.S. university campuses -- have come under increased scrutiny over the last few years as a number of political figures have called for their closure. Chief among the critics is U.S. senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who has characterized the institutes as part of a broader effort by the Chinese government to influence American academia and stifle critical analysis of China's history and politics.

Criticism has also come from within academe. The American Association of University Professors has recommended that universities should renegotiate their agreements to ensure academic control of the institutes and academic freedom for all instructors or otherwise cease their involvement. The National Association of Scholars published a report last year recommending closure of the institutes and finding that in hosting them "universities have made improper concessions that jeopardize academic freedom and institutional autonomy."

This has been a longstanding concern here at UCLA (see my 2015 blog post) but the administration seems uninterested in the problem.